


No Kiss List

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, First Kiss, Growing Up Together, childhood enemies, friends to sweathearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 07:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11008446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: Peridot is the only person in the fourth grade that Lapis has on her 'no kiss list' for a kind of underground kissing booth, Peridot is not happy about itthey grow older together and things begin to shift





	No Kiss List

_Fourth Grade_

Peridot Barns tapped her foot on the pavement, the edges of her mouth tugged down as the line spread out in front of her, an irritated twitch was forming in her eyebrow.

Katie McMillan guarded a little pass toward the back of the school where a small alley ran between the music and art building. Peridot tapped her foot even harder.

Patrick Kirby went into the inlet with his chipped front tooth and goofy look on his face, Peridot rolled her eyes. She heard a short transaction in front of her and she frowned at the sky until the minute passed.

Patrick came back with an even bigger goofy grin on his face. She could count the number of baby teeth he still had.

Peridot turns hotly on her heels to the front entrance, Katie McMillan rose a fine dark eyebrow at her and put an arm out in her way.

“What?” Peridot lifted her chin, “I’m not even allowed to go in now?”

Katie’s eyes dart back into the shallow inlet, Peridot tried to look over her arm and a girl around her own age was staring back. The girl nods.

“Let her in.” Katie gave a low noise, “But keep close.”  
  
Peridot wrinkled her nose and walked stiffly into what Lapis apparently called ‘her office.’ It was just the dingy alley with an old card table set up, Lapis sat on a crate and looked bored.

“I want a number of 9!” Peridot slapped a five dollar bill she borrowed from her sister on the table. “If you will.” It was almost a threat.

Lapis raised one smudgy black eyebrow and lifted her face coolly up, “So you heard.”  
  
Peridot pulled at her own hair, “What?!”  
  
Lapis shrugged, “Dia wanted to add number nine. I said sure.” Lapis grinned, “For most everyone.”  
  
Theresa Diamond was one of the set of sisters that organized everything in this school. Dia ruled the fourth grade, Lapis was apparently ‘good enough’ to help.

Peridot narrowed her eyes, “Maria said I was the only one in the school that you wouldn’t do the kissing booth with.”

Lapis beamed, “Correct!”

Peridot balled up her hands and felt the bubbling words brew up from inside her, the worst ones, “Screw you!”

Lapis laughed and tossed her hair back, messing it up slightly. “That’s what you get.”  
  
Peridot slapped her hands down on the table, “This is…unfair! Injustice!”

“You told on me.” Lapis said shrewdly with her teeth bared, “You told Mrs. Sydney I was the one that let the fish go.”  
  
“You put it in the art room sink?” Peridot felt the next argument surfacing. “It was in danger.”

Katie stepped between them curiously, “Relax, it’s just a kiss on the cheek Barns.” She says with a slight frown.

Lapis almost giggled, “Hey, I’ll do on the mouth if you have a twenty. But closed mouth!”

Peridot stuck her tongue out a turned away, “Gross! You’re gross. I wouldn’t want a kiss from you anyway.”  
  
“Good! We’re putting up signs next! Kissing booth for everyone but Peridot,” Lapis called after her.

Peridot made more faces over her shoulder at Lapis until they both parted ways.

Lapis sold other things, like juice boxes and better markers but apparently, Peridot was the only one she wouldn’t sell a kiss to.

—————–

_Seventh Grade_

Peridot had three things that day: a headache, the purse her mom gave her with a large embroidered rose, and enough potato salad to feed a small army.

She didn’t want any of these things.

More importantly, Peridot didn’t want to go to her school’s ‘Spirit’ picnic, it was the end of the year, she wanted to go to bed for three days.

Her mom wouldn’t hear it.

Peridot was forced to put on her best sundress and ‘kitten pumps’ that made her toes ache and her mom telling her they wouldn’t be outdone by the Sanchez’s this year. Peridot tried to leverage her way out with the puffy red As on her report card, but grades were a given her mom said, not a carrot or stick.

Peridot found herself lugging her weary eyes over the bright green grass, the sticky Carolina humidity was already coating her skin and the sun tasted hot in her mouth.

Her mom took her potato salad and Peridot gratefully slipped away. She found a little distant slice of lawn and makes sure everyone else is busy.

“Ugh,” She flopped down on the grass and rolled over. It tickled her neck and she briefly watches the rounded cool whip clouds graze over the sky. She sighs.

It took twenty more minutes for many other students to arrive, Peridot’s family was the type to be more than a little early.

She could hear her phone buzz, she looks back up at the piercing blue sky, she should go congratulate Pearl Shimada’s science fair project. It was on the physics of floating objects.

Peridot rolls onto her stomach and lets the grass tickle her chin languidly. She didn’t want to go congratulate Pearl.

She could also pay her respects to Theresa like some sort of mob boss or just watch that Sapphire girl flirt the world thin with Ruby.

Peridot closes her eyes and lets her phone ring.

It was the end of the semester.

She has swimming visions of fish and a silky dream about being boiled in a butter ocean, it was more stressful than it sounded. The dream faded in and out of cool whip fluffy clouds. She may or may not snore.

“Peridot!”

Peridot jerks up, her blurry eyes popping open as someone called her name.

“Peridot! There you are, aren’t you allergic to grass? What are you doing?”  
  
Peridot rubbed her eyes and looked up with a squint, “I’m allergic to,” She yawns, “Cottonwood, eggs, walnuts, bees-”  
  
“Okay, okay.” Lapis Lazuli was standing before her in a loose blue skirt and a dark shirt promoting a band apparently called ‘The Cocaine Hooligans.’ She smelled distantly of chlorine.

Peridot frowns slightly and sits all the way up, “Did they serve the cake yet?” She asks in a flat tone as she tries to swallow the gray taste in her mouth.

Lapis kneeled down and shoved a twenty in her hands, “No. But my mom will look over in like a minute, quick.”  
  
“Quick what?” Peridot looked around and then back down at their hands with the green bill in it, “What’s this for?”  
  
“Twenty if you kiss me.”  
  
Peridot wrinkled her nose and looked up, “That doesn’t make sense. You called me a nerd…yesterday.”

Lapis was glancing over her shoulder, trying to get the attention of a dark-haired women in a pencil skirt, “Kiss, kiss, it will be like the fourth grade!”

“I was the only one in the fourth grade who didn’t get to use your kissing booth!”

Lapis snickered, “You do know I kicked half those boys in the end anyway.”  
  
“You put up a ‘do not kiss list’ with only my face.”  
  
“Come ooooon,” Lapis trying to slip the twenty into Peridot’s hand like she was was a faulty vending machine, “That was four years ago.” Lapis looked over her shoulder, “I need something big.”  
  
Peridot frowned for a moment, glancing over Lapis’s long painted eyelashes and slightly parted purple-gloss lips, she sniffs, “Wasn’t the hair enough?”  
  
Lapis was the first girl their grade to dye her hair, 2 weeks before Teddy got red streaks in hers, but everyone was talking about Lapis Lazuli. Lapis was all blue.

She watches her eyelashes again.

Lapis seemed to try and yank her forward, “She told me to get my ‘act put together right now young lady,’” She does a high-pitched little voice and Peridot almost smiles, “And then made fun of Ellen Degeneres for her suits. I’m going to show her!”  
  
Lapis was scowling and Peridot used her free hand to push her bangs back, her phone buzzed again. She glanced down, 3 missed calls from mom.

Peridot takes a deep breath, “Pass.” She straightens her least favorite yellow skirt out and shakes the grass out of her front, “I have my own mom to worry about,” She lifted her chin, “And I’m not taking money to kiss you! Weird.”

She goes to get up, Lapis flaps the twenty back and forth, “It’s easy money, I know you want to buy some geeky game right now or something… And my mom will be so mad!”

Peridot rolls away and shuffles to her feet, “I can’t even handle old Mr. Sheldon looking at me wrong. Getting adults mad is your thing.”  
  
“She has it coming! She went through my emails yesterday.”  
  
Peridot searched Lapis’s eyes for a moment, “I guess that’s just how it is when you’re on the ‘no kiss list.’”  
  
“Barns! Take my twenty.”  
  
Peridot turned around. “You’ll have to make me!”

“Ugh,” Peridot started running, trying to get back to the picnic as Lapis trailed her, “Just kiss me!”

“No!” Maybe she was laughing now, huffing as her lungs filled up with liquid air, Lapis made faces at her from behind.

“Uncool!”

Peridot winked as she got in line for the last of the cake, “Revenge.”  
  
Lapis tried to get two other people to kiss her for ‘shock value’ and Peridot complemented Pearl through gritted teeth. Lapis didn’t trail her again that night but Peridot studied her back with the eyes of a painter. She was impossible.

—————-

_Eleventh Grade_

Peridot glanced up at the muggy night clouds, almost purple in the November night sheen. It was just cold enough for a jacket and just warm enough to feel the thick air clammy across her cheeks.

Peridot set her jaw and picked her way across trimmed green lawn, the houses here were all wide apart and surrounded by bushy green trees.

The noise of a thumping house faced her to her left and she kicked a red solo cup across the grass and into the brown fence.

“Hey Peridot!” Some girl, Kathy Lane maybe, called to her from inside, “Woah, now they’ve really invited everyone haha, you look good!”  
  
“Thanks,” Peridot says airily and moves quickly.

She cleared the window where Kathy was waving at her from inside, the girl was red in the face and Peridot felt a little tense. She darts past a couple making out in the shadow of the house and rounds the porch into a chattering backyard.

She skims the throngs of teenagers congressing outside and spies mostly seniors, this was a party above her pay grade.

She’s being offered some dripping pink boxed wine when she sees a figure in a blue letterman jacket and a mop of electric blue hair.

The girl was facing away from them and slumped against a railing as some junior bothered her. Peridot sidestepped the last of the seniors, an honors student wearing a chest champion metal and starts waving.

“Yo,” She floats her way to the edge of the yard and makes her way in front of Lapis Lazuli, “Hey Lazuli, I’m here.”  
  
Lapis’s dark eyes flick over to Peridot and something in her brow softens, “Hey.” She said softly. Lazuli was hunched over, holding her stomach and looking a little pale in the light.

“Hey, it’s Barns, that’s one way to choose a plus one Lap.” The junior, Mark something, was trying to laugh with his popping freckles and earnest knocking knees.

“Buzz off Mark.” Peridot waved her hand in the air, “Lapis doesn’t feel well.”  
  
Mark turned, “You aren’t? Did you drink too much?”

Lapis scowls slowly at the other boy and then turns back to Peridot, “No.” She looks at Peridot, “Did you bring your scooter?”  
  
Peridot blinks, “It’s on the next street,” Peridot looks around, “parking is a mess right now.”  
  
Lapis grins and then holds her jacket a little closer to her frame, she was still wearing her blue swimmers one piece and a pair of jean shorts over them. Peridot saw a trophy being passed around inside but she doubted Lapis cared that much.

Peridot reached out, “Come on.”  
  
Lapis nods they start to head toward the front of the house again, picking her up was the least thing Peridot could do after the other girl spent that night at her house doing breathing exercises before Peridot’s first AP test.

Lapis was still holding her stomach and not looking particularly like a swimming state champion, Peridot doesn’t say anything.

They make it to the front of the yard, people were setting up a beer pong table out front.

Thomas Casper looks up, a senior who had also almost qualified for nationals. Almost.

“Lapis!” He calls, “Woah, you brought your gremlin.” Peridot could have kicked him, “You okay? Smile! We haven’t had anyone go to nationals since ‘00.”

Lapis did not smile. Henry elbowed his friend, “Leave her alone, the queen swimmer doesn’t have to smile.”  
  
“She doesn’t smile.” One of the girls said with a laugh.

“She’s still moping about getting drunk at state and sulking over not having gotten a first kiss or something.” Someone whispers, they laugh, Lapis holds up both her hands and flips them off.

“Hey, it’s all in good fun. I can help-”

Peridot takes Lapis’s elbow and they navigate back out into the wide paved streets. Lapis was still huffing moodily.

“Do you need an advil?” Peridot finally asks quietly.

Lapis was looking down at her feet, “it’sfine.” She mumbles, “I’m not even sick.”  
  
Peridot looks her up and down as she held her stomach, “Ya’ sure?”  
  
Lapis rolls her eyes, “I didn’t even want that damn trophy.” She grimaces, “And now they have ‘expectations,’ and ‘our champion’ bs, I would eat school spirit alive if I could.”  
  
Peridot blinks, “Hey, look at it this way. Mrs. Shaw said you’d be dropped out by now, so that’s coming a long way!”

Lapis chuckles, “If only, dropping out was honestly goals.” They turn the corner of the enormous elm tree, Lapis stops in place. “Now I have to go to nationals.” She wrinkles her nose, “After I said all those embarrassing things in front of my teammates.” She sniffs, “Not that I care.”  
  
Peridot sighs and puts out her hand out, they paused in the breath of the low branch overhang, “It couldn’t be that bad. You’re still cool Lazuli.”  
  
Lapis snickers, and then covers her mouth, “Obviously.” She seemed to be  smiling in the dimness.

Peridot looks around, spotting her green scooter off in the distance, she approaches where Lapis had stopped, “And what about fourth grade? You got paid to kiss people! That’s still a first kiss.”

“On the cheek,” Lapis protests, “They may have said it was on the mouth, but they are liars and I ended up kicking people in the shin mostly anyway.”  
  
Peridot raises her eyebrows, “You excluded me from being kicked in the shin all that time ago? Honestly.”  
  
Lapis frowned slightly, “Oh come on, that whole thing was so transparent.”  
  
Peridot wrinkled her brow and put her hands on her hips, “transparent?”

Lapis folded her arms across her stomach and looked to the left, “I wasn’t terribly subtle.”

She blinks, “Wait, what?”  
  
Lapis leaned forward, a stubbornness on her lip, “If you don’t know…then I won’t tell you.”  
  
Peridot threw her hands in the air, “All these years and it turns out there was some secret to it?! I can’t believe…I’m suing.”

“It was kind of obvious.” Lapis looks up at the tree branches as if studying them. “Not that it matters now.”

“What?” She insists.

Lapis sighs and scratches her neck, “I had a crush on you. Duh.”

Peridot stands up straight and blinks a couple times, and then blinks some more, “Oh.”  
  
Lapis shrugs and shifts from side to side, “granted, I was pretty much a little shit about it, but,” She twists her mouth to the side, “It was pretty definitely a thing.”  
  
Peridot gives a hesitant smile, “You had a crush on me?”  
  
Lapis blinks, “Yeah. I guess.”  
  
Peridot snorts, “A ‘no kiss list’ seems pretty counter-productive.”  
  
Lapis chuckles lowly, “You’re telling me!”

Peridot starts to laugh too, “Well, alright.” She searches her pockets and fumbled for her wallet, “But I’ll have you know I was pretty hung up about the whole thing.” She takes out a twenty, “but I’m sure you didn’t want to destroy me.” She bites her lip.

“Oh, I wanted to destroy you,” Lapis says with a grin.

Peridot shakes her head, “You know, I could help, with the whole state incident…and dilemma.”

Her face felt very hot, Lapis reaches for her pocket and takes out a little medal, the one from her free swim that wasn’t the trophy.

She slips the thick teal string overhead, “I know it’s not money…”  
  
Peridot quickly reaches out and gives her a five, “Well, I know it’s not a twenty…”  
  
Lapis closes her hand, pushing the money back toward her. Peridot lifts her chin curiously, eyes going as wide as saucers.

Lapis puts a hand under her chin and gently lifts her up farther, farther, Peridot finds herself pushing up on her tippy toes.

She gently closes the gap and Peridot feels her lips pressed into something soft and smelling of chlorine and nail polish. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply.

She feels her entire spine tingle and a dizziness filling her senses. It was slow and a little off center, but taking her apart like a deep exhale.

Lapis tilts her head and she deepens the kiss, everything is a little tunnel that funnels down down down to her.

Nothing is quite as sharp or surreal as the moment her first first kiss was with her fourth grade mean girl. Lapis is as soft as she is guarded and Peridot pulls her closer.

They kiss until it’s breathless and desperate and Peridot only has to pull away to start breathing again. Lapis looks down at her with hooded eyes.

“Not bad.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe worth my money’s worth.”  
  
Peridot looks down, “This is a medal.”  
  
Lapis leans down and kisses her cheek this time, “It’s gold.”  
  
Peridot puts out her hand, “Not bad then,” She grins, “Though you taste like an entire olympic swimming pool.”  
  
Lapis chuckles and takes her hand, “You better get used to it.”  
  
Peridot starts to guide her the rest of the way down the block, “I’ll be broke!”

“Maybe I’ll give you a discount.”  
  
“Yeah?” Peridot turns around to face her, reaching her lime green scooter. “What kind of discount?”  
  
Lapis shrugs a little shyly, “Well, for the right wooing, I hear girlfriends get a 100% off.”  
  
“100% off,” She says lowly, a little cheekily. “Sounds like my kind of deal.”

Lapis cheeks go a little rosier and she rolls her eyes before leaning down and kissing her on the lips again. A deep sparkling kiss and Peridot’s heart soars again.

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Lapis says as they part, “I require the equivalent of forty dollars of wooing per hour.”

Peridot helps her on the scooter and they straddle the bike as she gets her helmet on.

“I’m up for a challenge.”  
  
Lapis almost sounds like she giggles. Giggles. She wraps her arms around her waist, “If I knew you could flirt I would have told you that elementary thing earlier.”

Peridot turns her head slightly, “If I knew you wanted a first kiss…”  
  
Lapis flicks Peridot’s visor down roughly, “I was pretty bad at getting it.”  
  
Peridot revs her engine, “Better late than never!”

Lapis holds on and they speed off with their elm tree and party to their back, the medal swings around her neck and something light bursts in her chest.

She hung up the ‘no kiss list’ sign on her locker for the rest of the year, their kind of joke before they snogged in the hall like idiots who sort of kind of liked each other since the fourth grade, and a long time after.


End file.
